Bitter Pill to Swallow

Chapter 8

"Hey, Val, you're not gonna believe this."

Valerie looked up from the rifle she was cleaning, raising an eyebrow at Welsh as he plonked himself down beside her.

"What's happened now and who's fault is it?" She sighed, looking up and meeting his worried eyes. The men had been steadily getting themselves into more and more trouble the longer they stayed in Aldbourne. They were itching to get into action and all the waiting around was winding them up.

"Sobel issued Dick with a court martial," he explained, and Valerie's eyes bugged in disbelief. "Some bogus charges about missed latrine duty or something. Anyway, Dick insisted on trial by court martial so now he's on KP until they can sort it out."

"KP?" Valerie exclaimed. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. We could be jumping into Europe God knows when and that idiot's got one of our officers on goddamn KP?" She was furious. It was undoubtedly the stupidest thing she'd ever heard in her life. They were preparing to go to war for Christ sake, and Sobel was still blundering on with his ridiculous vendetta against Dick.

"I know," Welsh agreed, kicking a stone. "We're out here training for the jump of our lives and Sobel is still trying to prove that he's a better officer than Dick."

"Yeah, well, he damn well ain't, that's for sure," Valerie grumbled. "He's gonna get the whole damn company killed out there, and now he's put our best chance of surviving on goddamn KP."

"Wow, Val," Welsh smirked, unable to help himself from getting a rise out of her. "When did you become Dick's biggest cheerleader? If you're not careful people might think you actually like him."

"Oh, don't be such an idiot, Harry," she huffed, rolling her eyes and punching him on the arm. It was true that she'd grown noticeably nicer to Dick in the last few weeks; he'd often walk her home from the bar and the more they talked about everything and anything, the more she grew to like him. He sometimes still got on her nerves with his saint-like ways, but on the whole she'd had to accept that he was just a nice guy who meant no harm to anyone.

"Oh, dear," he laughed, throwing his head back and grinning at her, "have I hit a nerve?"

"When don't you hit a nerve, Harry Welsh," she teased. "I actually can't believe this, surely Sink won't allow this charade to go on? We're preparin' for war, we can't afford distractions like this."

"No idea, Val," Harry sighed, "but Sink isn't stupid. He probably knows there's something up with this and he's figuring out how to get around it."

"I hope you're right," she hummed.

~~~~~

It was well into the evening when Valerie finally bumped into Dick. He was behind the mess hall, clipboard in hand as he checked off supplies.

"I'd say the clipboard suits you but, given the circumstances, it really doesn't."

He gave her a small smile and sighed as he looked up from his list. "So, you heard then?" He asked, sitting down on a crate and leaning back on his hands, clipboard abandoned.

"Harry told me this mornin',' she replied, plopping down on the crate beside him. "And I gotta say, it's the damn stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. We could be jumpin' into war God knows when, and if we're stuck with Sobel without you there, well... I can't imagine many of us will survive day one."

He looked up at her, barely suppressed surprise all over his face. "Oh, don't look at me like that," she scoffed, bumping his shoulder. "We may have had a rough start, but I've always thought you were a damn fine officer, Dick. That's why I got so snippy when you questioned me on the boat."